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Top Reporting Awards
The good news keeps coming in for Vermont Public Radio reporter Steve Zind. Zind, of Braintree, learned in March that three of his news and feature reports had won regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for outstanding news coverage. This past week, he was notified that two of those entries have gone on to win national Murrow awards. And, late last week, Zind got a go-ahead for his request to travel to Iran to report several stories for National Public Radio. It will be his third trip to the ancestral home of his grandfather’s family. His first two trips resulted in two news series that aired on Vermont Public Radio, in 2005 and in 2006. Last year’s five-part series earned him a regional Murrow award this year, for outstanding news series. Zind also won regional awards this year for his coverage of a Montpelier peace song competition, which took top honors in feature reporting, and for his report on a Vermont woman with terminal cancer, the top entry in broadcast writing. Both of these entries went on to earn national Murrow awards. The national awards mean a trip to New York City this fall for a formal awards ceremony, Zind said this week. The peace song report, packed with musical clips, featured a Montpelier coffeehouse’s efforts "to find a peace anthem for our times," Zind explained. In "Your Own Coffin," Zind followed a woman as she contacted a carpenter, to have him make for her a simple pine coffin. "It was her way of trying to finish up business," Zind said. "It sat as a bookshelf, until it was needed." From Iran After years of reporting on the Vermont scene, Zind is gaining a reputation for his reports from the little-understood country of Iran. In 2005, after his first trip there, Zind put together his first series for VPR, broadcasting voices from the streets of Tehran to the mountain villages. His second series, based on a return trip to Iran, explored Iran’s domestic issues, such as joblessness, poverty, women’s rights, and freedom of expression. His stories, Zind told The Herald, were "an effort to give a sense of daily life in Iran, and some of the struggles people there face." Some of the pieces in that series were picked up by National Public Radio, and aired nationwide, Zind noted. He leaves late this month for his third trip, this time to report on two issues. One is the country’s surprising gasoline shortage for its citizens, and the other on the large number of women college graduates, who are "clamoring" for jobs, he said. Zind has promised to send some dispatches for publication in The Herald, as well. Zind said he has never been afraid in Iran, and has found the Iranians to be "very welcoming." "I’m intrigued by the place, and the more you see, the more questions you have." However, he noted that as a Western journalist, he is assigned a translator by the government, and "all your comings and goings are under the watchful eye of that translator." Still, he said, "in terms of political freedoms, people would be surprised how much there is in Iran, compared to Saudi Arabia, or even Egypt." Radio reporting—"the people you get to meet; the stories you get to tell"—is a terrific job, Zind said. According to VPR News Director John Van Hoesen, Zind’s skill at making "the local voice come alive" is a hallmark of his reporting. "He transports us there," Van Hoesen said. A graduate of Northern Arizona University, Zind worked for radio stations in Phoenix and Tucson before moving to Vermont in 1972. He served as program director for WNCS in Montpelier for 17 years, and also worked as news director for WCVR in Randolph. Zind has been with VPR since 1994, when he began hosting Switchboard, VPR's call-in program. VPR can be heard at numerous spots on the FM band, including 107.9 in Burlington, 89.5 in Windsor, 88.7 in Rutland, and online at vpr.net. |
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